Christie’s Exhibition to Reclaim UK’s Pioneering Role in Pop Art

The opening of Christie’s Mayfair in Bond Street represents something of a first for an auction house. It will occupy 11,500 sq ft of space over three floors to stage three or four museum-quality curated exhibitions every year that are, according to Francis Outred, “interesting, intellectual academic shows which are also commercial”.

Outred, Christie’s head of postwar and contemporary art, said the model did not exist in the UK, adding that early British pop art was crying out for serious appraisal. “What’s really interesting here is that it’s not like the British were second – they were first. Britain invented the term pop art and it is now a global phenomenon which is known principally as an American phenomenon.”

The show is expected to feature 70 works from artists including David Hockney, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Blake, and RB Kitaj. […]

When the show, titled When Britain Went Pop!, opens in three months it will have been a year in the planning. It is being staged in association with the Waddington Custot gallery which, as Waddingtons, was involved with many pop artists in the 1960s.